


Things to Know About Clint Barton

by letsgogetlost, Petits Pois (letsgogetlost)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AmeriHawk, Deaf Clint Barton, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 20:27:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10749198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letsgogetlost/pseuds/letsgogetlost, https://archiveofourown.org/users/letsgogetlost/pseuds/Petits%20Pois
Summary: There were certain things all the Avengers knew about Clint Barton.Steve tries to figure those things out, and learns some new things along the way.





	Things to Know About Clint Barton

**Author's Note:**

> I had a moment about Steve looking after Clint's IV in Ultron and this happened. 
> 
> No specific relation to canon timelines - just a vague MCU/Fraction Hawkeye universe mashup. It's how I roll.
> 
> Unbeta'd, so please let me know if you notice mistakes.
> 
> Signing in ASL is indicated by single quotation marks and italics - _'Like this.'_ I did not attempt to replicate signed grammar/syntax.

There were certain things all the Avengers knew about Clint Barton. Things like:

\- If you challenged him to a shoot-off, he would accept. Especially if it was trick shots. He would put down his pizza, even if he hadn’t eaten in three days because he’d be stuck on a mission without supplies, and he’d be out the door and down to the range before you could blink, and probably doing a handstand and shooting with his toes _just because_.

\- He loved coffee and kept weird hours and insisted the two weren’t related. But if you walked into the Avengers Tower kitchen at 3am and the coffee machine was humming softly to itself and slowly filling a carafe, there was an excellent chance Clint was nearby, and a fair chance that he was passed out on one of the couches nearby, all loose limbs and soft snores and maybe still in his tactical gear.

\- If you were out with him off mission, at the park or just walking down the street, he would pet every dog he was allowed to pet, and he’d look longingly at nervous dogs and working dogs, too. But he was good and didn’t pet them unless their owners said he could. Every K-9 policeman and person with a service dog in a two-mile radius knew Clint (and let him pet their dogs if it was a good time).

\- On mission, there was no one who kept better track of everything going on, no one who was harder to sneak up on. It was like he saw everything at once. Off mission, though, he seemed like he didn’t pay a lot of attention to things. And he was easy to sneak up on, but that didn’t mean you should. 

\- He would always, always risk his own safety for others. Especially kids and pets. Which meant he got hurt a lot. But he hated being injured, and more than that, he hated medical care. The medical team dreaded treating him because he was always refusing care or sneaking off before he was cleared. The dread seemed mutual.

 

\-----------------

 

Steve had been bemused by Clint at first. Yes, he’d been bemused by most things at first, but Clint brought his own particular brand of strangeness with him. There were all the above things, and many more besides. He could be a contradiction. There were days he was chatty and funny and friendly, and there were days when he barely seemed present. He was suspicious of strangers, but he seemed to like Steve. More than that - he seemed to _trust_ Steve, even though Steve was fairly sure he’d never done anything to make the rangy strange archer warm to him. Clint just had - and maybe in that way he was kind of like the dogs he loved. There were just certain people he liked.

 

Clint’s inconsistency was what helped Steve start to figure out the rest. Steve quickly understood the days Clint just seemed to drift around the Tower, because Steve felt like that some days, too. And once he realized that that behavior wasn’t just Clint being weird, it was Clint not feeling right - after that, other things started to fall into place.

 

\-----------------

\- The shoot-outs, the trick shots, those were a coping thing. 

Like the rest of the team, Clint was always looking for a distraction, and shooting was his meditation, or something - the thing he did to relax, as well as the thing he did for a living. Like Tony with his tinkering. Like Steve with his punching bags, with working out so much more than he needed to. 

Steve had figured that out when he was in the gym in the middle of the night, destroying yet another heavy bag, and followed a strange, steady thwack-thwack sound to find Clint in the archery range next door, sending arrow after arrow into the target. Clint hadn’t looked surprised to see him, which meant he had probably noticed Steve was in the gym. After that, they exchanged nods when they found each other there late at night.

That explained the weird hours thing, too. Like Steve, Clint had trouble sleeping.

\-----------------

\- The coffee, it ended up, really wasn't part of the sleep thing. 

Steve was complaining about the coffee one morning, inspecting a bag of fancy small-batch roasted beans Tony had flown in from the West Coast every week. Steve just wanted something normal. Something familiar. Something like the coffee he used to drink - maybe not _good_ , in terms of taste, but unpretentious. Basic.

He didn’t even think Clint was listening - Clint was usually pretty out of it when they interacted at the coffee maker in the morning - but then he turned and saw Clint was watching him intently, apparently hanging off every word. 

“Want to know a secret?” Clint asked, and when Steve nodded, he pulled a large, unmarked tin out of one of the lower cabinets, and opened it to reveal a container of Maxwell House Coffee. Pre-ground and everything. The container was plastic, but otherwise, it was a lot like Steve remembered it.

He just stared at it for a minute, then gave Clint a questioning look.

“It’s mine, I sneak it in. When it's just me, that’s what I brew. You’re welcome to use it, too.”

Steve was so happy he almost hugged him, and a few minutes later, they were sat across the kitchen table from each other, drinking something much more familiar than Tony’s fancy beans.

“I guess it’s silly,” Steve said, between sips. “I should get over things being different. But some tastes you just crave. This reminds me of being a kid… My mom used to give me coffee for my asthma. She liked this brand, it’s what she bought if we had money.”

For a moment Clint was silent, just looking at him, but then he nodded. “Me, too. I mean - my mom. Same. If we had enough money, she always bought this kind. The smell makes me think of her.” He took another sip, then smiled. “I miss the old tins, though.”

Steve laughed. “I was going to say the same thing! Careful, people will start thinking you’re living in the past, too.”

“Nah,” Clint said, smiling across at him. “Not my thing. I’m good now.”

\-----------------

\- The dog thing had been fun to discover. 

Clint would never go running with Steve, said there was no way he was facing that kind of humiliation in public. But when Steve proposed a walk in Central Park to enjoy the nice weather one spring afternoon, Clint jumped at the chance. 

He was the only one who volunteered. Natasha told Steve he’d regret it, that they wouldn’t get anywhere. Steve didn’t understand the warning until they were in the park and Clint was petting every dog. 

Steve didn’t mind, though. Clint had been subdued a lot over the week or so before that, and had looked so worn out that Steve had been a little worried that Natasha’s warning meant Clint was going to pass out on him. But all that changed in the park. The nice weather, the sunshine, the spring flowers, they all made Steve smile, made him feel more normal, more human. For Clint, it seemed like it was the dogs. They made him totally light up in a way Steve hadn’t seen for a while - made him grin and laugh and make friends with strangers.

So Steve wasn’t going to begrudge that, not for one minute. He just stood around and enjoyed the day, and enjoyed watching Clint get bowled over by big dogs on five separate occasions in the course of an hour.

He did wonder why Clint didn’t have a dog himself. Maybe it was the weird schedules they all led - how often they were away. When he asked Natasha about it during a sparring session the next day, though, she said it was because Clint didn’t think he was responsible enough. Which was bull crap, but Steve didn’t really know how to tell him that. He couldn’t really walk up to the guy and tell him he should get a dog, that he was good enough for a dog, that he deserved a dog. That he deserved to smile like he did that day in the park.

\-----------------

\- The sneaking up thing was a total accident. 

Steve had noticed Clint wasn’t always super alert when they were off mission, of course - it was hard not to notice that. He’d even gotten to the point where he could tell almost immediately whether Clint was having an off day or not. 

But sometimes Steve could have an off day, too. As Natasha always seemed eager to remind him, sometimes he could be just as oblivious as Tony or Thor. And he was used to seeing Clint around the Tower at weird hours, when they both should have been sleeping but weren’t. 

So it was 3am, Clint was making coffee, and Steve padded into the kitchen in bare feet - he’d just gotten out of bed, wide awake - and said Clint’s name, and touched his shoulder, and ended up with a bloody nose when Clint swung around and punched him.

The blood stopped within a minute. (Thanks, Super Soldier Serum.) Clint kept apologizing, though - over and over. Steve couldn’t get him to stop, and he looked genuinely, deeply upset, his face flushed and eyes bright. Not only that, but he was shaky. And Clint was never shaky. 

Finally, Steve stood up straight, shoulders squared - Cap Pose - and used his Mission Voice, told Clint to stop apologizing, then all but man-handled him into an armchair, forced one of the newly-brewed cups of coffee into his hands, and waited while he took some sips and a few deep breaths.

“Are you going to tell me what’s up?” Steve asked, once Clint looked a little calmer. The modern idiom made Clint smile a little, which was what Steve had been going for.

“You surprised me. I really didn’t mean to - I'd _never_ hit my friends - sor -“

Steve raised a hand in a gentle ‘stop’ gesture, and Clint swallowed the apology. “It was my fault, Clint, I should be apologizing. It's the middle of the night and I caught you off guard. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

“Still shouldn’t have hit you,” Clint murmured, and bent over his coffee, sipping at it again. It was the Maxwell House, Steve had recognized the scent as soon as he’d walked in, and could smell it again now that his nose had healed itself. He had a feeling Clint was having a rough night. 

Steve had a fairly good notion that Clint had nightmares, and figured Loki had to be at least one of the reasons why. But there was something else going on, too, and Steve pondered it while they drank their coffee - until he tilted his head back too far, got a big taste of the leftover nose blood, and almost spat out his coffee, spluttering mightily at the nasty mix of flavors.

Clint didn’t even look up, and then Steve got it, and reached out a foot to tap Clint’s. That made the other man look up immediately. 

“Not wearing your hearing aids?”

Clint blanched, and touched one ear, then the other. “Aw, ears… I was so out of it, I didn’t even -“ Then he blinked. “Wait. How - did Tasha tell you?”

“No. I only just figured it out. I said your name before I touched you, earlier.”

“Futz.”

Steve shrugged. “Sorry. If I’d known, I would have made sure you knew I was there. And sorry - lipreading, that’s okay for you? I know a little sign but I last used it in the '30s.”

“Yeah, it’s fine… You’re not going to lecture me for not telling you?”

“No. It might have been helpful to know, but it hasn’t been getting in the way of our missions. And it’s your choice. I’m not your boss.” 

Steve was entirely aware that Clint wasn’t totally comfortable with the team yet - with having to work with anyone except his partner and his handler. And he was also very aware of the fact that Clint and Natasha were the ‘mere mortals’ of the bunch, so to speak. He didn’t blame Clint for not revealing something that might be read as a weakness.

And when Clint started wearing bright purple over-ear hearing aids around the Tower a few weeks later, Steve didn’t say anything about it, and didn’t let Tony be weird about it, either - but smiled and gave Tony the go-ahead when he said he really, _really_ wanted to talk to Clint about it, and see if he could make any improvements to their comms technology.

\-----------------

\- Improved comms technology couldn’t help everything, however. It definitely didn’t help when an EMP went off during a fight with Hydra agents, and everyone’s comms went down, and then they couldn’t find Clint anywhere and couldn’t even yell for him, because he wouldn’t be able to hear them anyway. 

It took getting the computers booted back up and getting Jarvis scanning for life signs before they found him, curled protectively around a little girl and two guinea pigs in a half-collapsed apartment building. 

Steve had known it was Clint as soon as Jarvis said “adult, child, two small animals together”, before the AI had even done deeper scans and confirmed “The unconscious figure is consistent with Agent Barton.” By that point, Steve was already up in the building, leaping over the gap a bomb had left and digging into the rubble - soon with Tony’s help as the other man followed him, jetting in through a window. 

The little girl and the guinea pigs were both fine. Terrified but fine - and soon reunited with the girl’s sobbing parents on the ground. Clint, however, was less than fine. He had blocked the girl and her pets from the bomb’s impact with his body, and even with all his tactical gear on, he looked rough. He’d been conscious when they dug him out, but he was beaten up and bleeding, and drifting in and out. Tony flew him down to ground level himself, then came back for Steve. He'd refused to let him make his way down on his own, insisting that Jarvis said the building was unstable and not saying a thing about how Steve looked absolutely beside himself and Tony didn’t want to leave him to fend for himself.

Tony volunteered to fly the Quinjet back to New York, too - get Clint back to their medical people, rather than putting extra pressure on the field hospital already set up for civilians in the town square. It was a good call, but Tony flying the jet meant Steve was left at loose ends, just hovering and barely listening to whatever Thor was chatting about and trying not to stare anxiously across the hold to where Natasha and Bruce were looking after Clint.

He jumped like a frightened rabbit when Natasha suddenly spat out a loud “Dammit, Clint!” and threw something to the ground. As she stormed past Steve she shot him a look and said “You try!”

So, he did, coming over to stand by Clint’s gurney with a distinctly nervous-looking Dr. Banner. “What’s going on?”

“The futzer won’t take an IV,” Natasha grumbled from her jumpseat on the other side of the hull.

Steve smiled down at Clint, who gave him a very tight, wan smile in return. “You pissed Widow off. Isn’t that one of the rules of Avengers Club? Don’t piss Widow off?” He hadn’t actually seen Fight Club yet, and wasn’t sure he wanted to, but the near-reference made Tony whoop from his seat at the controls anyway.

Clint, though, was still just looking at him, and Steve remembered that his comms - and therefore his hearing aids - were probably still out. And lipreading might be a bit beyond him at the moment. He looked like he was having trouble focusing, his eyes a little glazed.

 _’W-I-D-O-W angry’_ he tried, in his very rusty ASL. Clint did respond to that - he laughed a little, and then coughed. A little blood came up with it. Steve looked at Bruce in a panic, but Bruce patted his back reassuringly.

“He's all right, don't worry. Just bit his cheek pretty badly. Jarvis scanned him, nothing life-threatening. He broke some ribs, though, so laughing probably hurts."

Steve have a huge sigh, coughed himself - choking on the plaster dust he’d inhaled getting Clint out - and then turned to glance at the scans Jarvis had been displaying for Bruce. “Okay. Does he need anything now?”

“Natasha was trying to get him to let her put in an IV, get some fluids in him and maybe some painkillers, but he’s…”

“Yeah.” Steve knew. He’d seen how assiduously Clint avoided the medical staff. He considered, the lowered the gurney some so Clint would be on level with him when he sat down beside him. Clint just watched him do it without protest, which was maybe a good sign. That or he was losing consciousness again.

_’B-R-U-C-E says: you need IV.’_

Clint grimaced, then took a shaky breath, and winced. For a moment he squeezed his eyes shut; when he opened them again, he pointed at Steve, a question in his eyes.

It took Steve a second to understand the question, but then he nodded and turned to look at Bruce. “I’ll put in his IV.”

“You’re sure? I can -“

“I really don’t think he’ll let you. And I know how. Widow can tell you, I’ve done it to her.” They all had basic medical training. It was important for missions when they were operating on their own, without support and cleanup crews. 

Bruce seemed to accept that, and handed him what he needed. Steve showed it all to Clint, so he’d know what was coming. He got a small nod in response, so he did it - prepped the back of Clint’s hand, stuck the needle in, got everything connected. Bruce got it flowing, and Natasha scoffed from across the hold. 

“If he’s that good for you, that’s your job from now on.” There was no venom in it - she was smiling, in fact. Like Steve had pleased her somehow. He looked away, back down at Clint. 

He was glad Jarvis had confirmed no major damage had been done, because Clint really didn’t look good. He’d lost a lot of blood and had more broken bones than just the ribs, and he had to be in a lot of pain. There was still blood and plaster dust on his face. But his eyes looked brighter than before, more focused, and he was watching Steve look him over; when Steve met his eyes, Clint gave him that questioning face again.

 _’What?’_ Steve asked, with the sign and a similar inquiring look.

Clint went to raise his right hand - probably going to sign back - then frowned when he discovered it was in a splint. “You look upset,” he said, his voice was rough and low, a little stilted - he wasn’t having the easiest time breathing. “The kid -“

Steve laughed a little. “She’s fine.” _'Good'_. “Not a scratch. You even saved her guinea pigs.” _'Little pigs - good.'_

Clint smiled at that, but then frowned at Steve, and Steve got the question that time: Why did he look so upset, then?

Steve hesitated, then took a shaky breath - almost as shaky as Clint’s broken-rib ones - and, meeting Clint’s eyes, reached out and touched him. Brushed his sweaty, dusty, slightly bloody hair off his forehead, then touched his cheek, too. 

Clint blinked, then nodded. He got it. He reached out the hand with the IV in it and Steve took it, gently, and held it all the way back to New York while Clint drifted in and out of painkiller-and-exhaustion induced sleep beside him.

 

\---------------

 

There were certain things only Steve knew about Clint. Things like:

\- His favorite date spot, which was a patch of grass under a tree in Prospect Park. It ended up that Clint loved picnics, and he’d already liked Brooklyn, and quickly grew to love it as he and Steve explored the borough. When they decided to move there together, he was just as eager and excited as Steve - maybe even more so.

\- The sleepy sounds he made when he was just waking up after a good night's sleep, and the happy upward pitch they took on if you put a cup of coffee down on the bedside table before he’d even opened his eyes.

\- The gentle curve of his body when he pressed against Steve’s side on the couch, fitting perfectly as Steve wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

\- His love for fixing things, building things - and for keeping his hardware in old coffee tins.

\- How he looked when he cried, when things from his past came back to haunt him. 

\- The unwavering compassion and support he had to give when Steve’s past came back to haunt him, too. His intense protectiveness of the people he loved, which he extended to Bucky without question. His understanding of things Steve could barely begin to comprehend - of the pain of mind-control, of the struggle to face even basic day-to-day life when you’d unwillingly done terrible things. And his excitement when he discovered that Bucky - unlike Steve - was willing to play video games with him.

\- The expression of pure joy when Steve said that _of course_ they would keep the dog that had almost sacrificed its life to protect Clint.

\- The jolt of him waking from a nightmare, and how he’d go loose with relief when Steve gathered him to his chest in the near-dark of their bedroom - never totally dark, because Clint didn’t like it. Steve found he liked sleeping with the blinds half-open anyway. That way, he could see the city outside - always awake and alive, always how he remembered it, and always brand new, too.

 

And after that day on the Quinjet, Steve was always the one who put in Clint’s IVs - though those got less and less as time moved on. He was still breakable in a way Steve never would be, but somewhere along the line, he stopped letting himself get so broken.

**Author's Note:**

> If you don't mind lots of yelling about Yuri on Ice and figure skating, come see me on my new fandom Twitter - https://twitter.com/IcyPetitsPois


End file.
